Last Hurrah a Satisfying One for Montclair Prep

In a manner of speaking, next season marks a groundbreaking of sorts for the athletic program at Montclair Prep.

The private Van Nuys school, barred by the Southern Section from participating in the playoffs in all sports next year after an investigation of the school’s football program, will have to set new goals.

That is not to say that the Montclair Prep baseball program has not already begun considering ways to dig itself out.

In Friday night’s Southern Section 1-A Division final at Blair Field in Long Beach, a pair of junior pitchers, Steve Cain and Russell Ortiz, were struck by the thought that the harvest of their senior seasons will not be as fruitful.

“I told Russell to pick up some dirt and put it in his back pocket,” said Cain, the winning pitcher in the Mounties’ 12-2 victory over Orange Lutheran, “because we’re not coming back next year.”

Therein lies the problem. The Mounties, who have won six Southern Section baseball titles in the past 14 years, will retrench next season. Montclair Prep has won consecutive 1-A championships. However, the term two-time defending champion will not be employed next spring.

The team, which has recorded two 20-win seasons in a row, will be allowed to defend its Alpha League title--which it has won nine consecutive times.

How challenging.

Based on sheer momentum, three in a row would hardly seem impossible. In 1990, Montclair Prep defeated Village Christian, 14-4, the most lopsided score in a 1-A final since Needles punctured Desert, 12-0, in 1959. The Mounties matched that 10-run rout of 1990 against Orange Lutheran.

Montclair Prep won Small Schools Division titles in 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1982. Fillmore, with championships in 1975-77, is the lone 1-A school to win three consecutive titles and the last school in any division to achieve the feat.

Despite the disappointment, Coach Walt Steele will nonetheless try to keep the Montclair Prep program headed in the same direction. Next week, he will begin formulating the schedule for 1991-92. His goal is to put together the most challenging nonleague lineup in school history.

No reasonable offer refused.

“I’m going to try to schedule the biggest people we can find in the Valley,” said Steele, who said he already has received a verbal commitment from Crespi. “Maybe we’ll try to enter an out-of-state tourney for the visibility.”

The nonleague schedule, to be sure, will be the season’s emphasis.

“That will be our playoffs,” Cain said. “We have to prove to ourselves that we can play with 3-A and 4-A teams.”

It has been established in the past. Last season, Montclair Prep won the now-defunct Thousand Oaks tournament, defeating City Section 4-A finalist El Camino Real in the process.

Over the years, the program has churned out several major-college players, including Torey Lovullo (UCLA), Toi Cook and Jeff Light (Stanford), Frank Charles (Cal State Fullerton) and Keyaan Cook (Louisiana State).

Ortiz, who finished 11-1, is one of five Montclair Prep pitchers who will return next season. “It’s too bad we can’t three-peat,” Ortiz said with a shrug. “But it’s over and we can’t do anything about it.”

The team, it seems, already has accepted its fate and, in the process, has learned a lesson that Steele says is just as important as winning championships.

“The probation’s tough,” Steele said. “But the bottom line is that the kids still get to play. Life is adversity. When you get kicked in the teeth, you get back up, brush yourself off and go at it again.”

And while brushing that dirt off, don’t forget to grab a souvenir.